Dad went to prison, but school goes on

Objectives Children of incarcerated parents, relative to their peers without incarcerated parents, are more disadvantaged across a host of important social domains and the educational context appears to be an especially important site of potential harm for children of incarcerated parents. Few studies, however, distinguish between parental incarceration and the instability that may produce it. Moreover, the literature on the educational outcomes of children of incarcerated parents uses a wide variety of outcomes, making direct comparisons across studies difficult. This study provides evidence on the short-term association between paternal involvement with the criminal justice system and a direct measure of children's cognitive test scores using standardized tests. Methods The study uses full-population Danish registry data and scores on the Danish National Test, a mandatory standardized test in reading and math taken during compulsory school. We leverage variation in the timing of standardized test dates and paternal incarceration to compare test scores between children experiencing paternal incarceration before and after the test. Results The results show that paternal incarceration is associated with short-term declines in reading test scores while we find no differences for math test scores. Additionally, declines in reading test scores are driven primarily by children who are in the lowest part of the distribution on the cognitive score continuum. Conclusion Our results suggest that some portion of the association between parental incarceration and cognitive test scores are likely due to instability that precedes incarceration, but parental incarceration is also associated with declines in children's reading test scores.